Age of Revolution: Unova
by Birdboy
Summary: "The Revolution is like Marowak: it devours its own children"  A tale of a chaotic age of strife, poverty, and betrayal set a century back in Unova's history.
1. Chapter 1

"_The Revolution is like Marowak: it devours its own children."_

There is little in Unova today which recalls that chaotic time nearly a century before N revived the great dragon. Travelers often note that pokemarts are in pokemon centers in Unova, unlike the rest of the pokemon world, because they are both run by the state. Team Plasma takes its name and inspiration from a radical organization of that era, but they differ a great deal in ideology; freeing the Pokemon was only incidental to the original Plasma's goal of freeing Man. Technical machines are now reusable, an invention of the revolution to combat the monopoly of the TM companies and the fact that only great trainers could afford them. And yet the regime has liberalized so much that an enormous shopping mall stands on Route Nine, complete with private enterprise.

Gone is the hunger and subjugation which drove many revolutionaries to seek only revenge through bloodshed. Gone are the Durant guillotines, the endless purges and infighting at the top – and at the bottom, for there were still those who believed in the old ways. But also gone are the clashing ideals and dreams, and the hope of a better tomorrow.

But before we discuss the revolution's end, we must examine its beginning. It all started with a Braviary and its trainer.

Historians have remarked that revolutions are not born of broken spirits, but of rising hopes which regimes try in vain to snuff out, and so it was the case with Unova. The elderly President Nicholas (in reality a dictator who held sham elections) had sent massive armies to Orre in a war started on by his own megalomania and launched a massive propaganda campaign about the land and resources there; how it'd ease population pressures, make housing cheaper, how the raw materials of empire would increase profits, allowing the factories to raise wages and ease the enormous pressure on the working class.

Nicholas won. He would have been far better off losing. The reason he was able to win so easily was precisely because Orre was not a bountiful Eden, but a useless group of oases in between long miles of desert. When it became clear to him how badly he had been informed about Orre's geography (though to be sure, he had exaggerated it some as well) Nicholas was horrified. He tried to ease pressures on the home front; if people were paid better, he could take credit for victory, but the business elites refused to give even an inch, and he feared that they would back a military coup if he forced them to do so. Most permits to migrate to Orre had been "delayed" – he blamed the enormous demand – but he had to let a few through, just so he wouldn't be caught in the lie. He made a sincere effort to set people up with decent homes and enough food in the good parts of Orre – stuff that'd make them write home with things other than "its all a lie!" - but the people moving there were expecting paradise, and usually had to pay a large amount of money in bribes to be approved to begin with. And there were always some abuses, some people slipping through the cracks, ignored by corrupt officials and forced to work for low pay. Orre's climate was scorching in the daytime, its pokemon different than Unova's, its wild pokemon rare, and pokemon were harder to feed than humans.

And so Bird Keeper Paul, fallen on harder times in Orre than in Castelia and wracked by desperation, made that fateful decision to take his Braviary and fly home while his pokemon still had enough energy to make the journey.

The Castelia City which Paul and his Braviary returned to was a place where it was said that the only difference between most people and pokemon is that the pokemon slept in pokeballs. It was not technically slavery, but that was the nicest thing which could be said about the economic system in use there. Indeed, slave owners had once pointed to Castelia as a defense of their own system; at least slave owners had responsibility to their slaves, but employees were replaceable. The pay was poor, and many but not all workers were in practice debt slaves, although they could not be bought and sold. Hours were long, accidents common, and although a few through luck or genius managed to escape into the upper class, most stayed in Castelia's giant factories their whole lives, doing the same monotonous labor every day. Although workers were free to work for someone else, it was little freedom, for rabble-rousers were blacklisted and pay just about as bad everywhere; it was no accident that so many had saved up what little cash they had (often from delaying debt payments) and bribed their way to Orre.

The Pokemon Centers were just one of the ways which the aristocrats and bourgeois kept control over the rest of the population. Running the center was not free; it did require maintenance, trained staff, and a functioning healing machine. The prices charged to heal pokemon, however, were not even remotely based on these costs; they were intentionally exorbitant in order to make pokemon training expensive, lest the common people gain strong pokemon and rebel. This did not stop Pokemon trainers - there was a booming black market for potions and ethers – but it did mean that the elites had more pokemon per trainer, and stronger ones as well. It also meant that their pokemon lasted longer, for severe injuries were far less likely to become fatal.

Bird Keeper Paul could not afford a pokemon center. Not in the sense that he'd have to cut back on food or shelter in order to pay it off; he would have sold anything he had, but he had already lost it to go to Orre. But as his exhausted Braviary half-dove, half-fell out of the sky and onto the Skyarrow Bridge, it was clear that he desperately needed one. The Braviary had been too weak to hunt on the day-long journey across the continent, and had not eaten for days back in Orre, either. The only food it had eaten recently was a baby Patrat which Paul had pawned his Braviary's pokeball to afford; without it, she would have collapsed in the wilderness, and her unarmed trainer would have to live by hunting or die trying.

So Paul, his unconscious Braviary carried like an extremely heavy Pidove, walked slowly across the Skyarrow Bridge, gathering onlookers with every step. Braviary were the national symbol of Unova, but they were not remotely a common pokemon, and a starved bird and a trainer falling out of the sky would have attracted attention even if it were a Swanna. "What happened?" a loud voice asked from the crowd, voicing the thoughts of them all.

The crowd then turned into a protest march, for Bird Keeper Paul took a deep, heavy breath and answered "Orre."

Unlike Bird Keeper Paul, whose story was told far and wide, or President Nicholas, who kept extensive memoirs, there is not much information at all about the thoughts of Doctor Frank on this fateful day; his family and the revolutionaries tell dramatically different stories. It is agreed that he began his career in medicine and became wealthy that way, but the revolutionaries tell a tale of an idealistic man corrupted by greed, while his family speaks of someone who tried to work within the system to save as many lives as possible.

What is undisputed is that when Bird Keeper Paul walked into the center, he asked Doctor Frank to heal his pokemon. The following conversation was recorded by a witness, a young Pokemon Center nurse by the name of Joy, although later events have thrown some doubt on her reliability:

"I swear I'll pay you back someday," Paul said.

"They all say that," Doctor Frank answered.

"I'll sell myself into indenture to you!"

"And what good would that do me? We have enough staff."

"Would I be able to raise a Braviary if I couldn't afford to pay for it?"

"If you could, your Braviary would never have been in this condition."

At this point, all agree, Paul walked out of the pokemon center, cradling his Braviary and staring off into the distance as though his will to live had just vanished. While he did, Doctor Frank placed an emergency phone call whose contents remain unknown, apart from the snippets "extra beds... a ton of beds... there are going to be a lot of pokemon who need help." According to the revolutionaries, he was calling in the military to crush the protests. According to his family and a few sympathetic historians, he believed that a pandemic had begun which his center was in no condition to treat, and was calling for a quarantine and emergency aid.

And then an angry and galvanized mob sent out a massive horde of pokemon. The battle was a short one; the Pokemon Center was guarded by nothing more than a few Blissey, who were no match for the physical attackers present on the scene. The center was stormed without a fight, Paul pointed to Doctor Frank, and he was killed by a razor leaf to the neck before he could release a single pokemon. The young Nurse Joy, either from terror at the mob or disgust at her boss's refusal, began to treat the Braviary.

It was a wonderful victory, and the crowd began to disperse, but many hung around, either from concern for the Braviary, ignorance of what was to come, or that mix of pride and anger which leads people into battle. And then the police force arrived.

According to police records, they were indeed called to enforce a quarantine, and events got out of hand. Many have argued over whether the records were altered, but perhaps they did not need to be. In the Unova in this era, after all, justice belonged to the wealthy. The police were recruited from the rich, contemptuous of the poor, and believed in a theory of "shoot first, ask questions later". Besides, a crime had obviously been committed – a doctor was dead and a vast crowd gathered in the Pokemon Center, none of whom could afford treatment there.

The crowd was ordered outside by a police microphone. Riveted by grief, Bird Keeper Paul refused, and every one of them followed his lead. His memoirs claim that he was not thinking clearly at this time and exhaustion led to defiance, but most historians believe his actions were designed to provoke a hostage situation through which the crowd could negotiate an escape; the pokemon in the center at the time were by definition the pokemon of those who could afford it. The police were taking no hostages.

The police brought four pokemon between them; a Throh, a Sawk, a Conkeldurr, and an Excadrill, all very large and very powerful. They were few in number, but this seldom hurt them in confronting angry mobs before; their typing save for the Excadrill was identical, but psychics were rare, birds could face a Stone Edge, and the most common pokemon in Unova among the poor were normal-types and Purrloin, which were weak to dark attacks.

What distinguished this battle from an ordinary walkover was not the presence of Paul's Braviary, still quite injured when they broke in, nor the presence of the mob, which were little better in combat than punches from their own trainers, but the presence of two other trainers with strong pokemon: an old Veteran named George with a Golurk, who had organized them tactically, and a Bug Catcher in his twenties named Joe with a Durant. Many other trainers in later years, some of them major historical figures, would later claim to have been at this battle, and it is even plausible in some instances; pokemon, after all, do gain experience points. These trainers are mentioned for their presence is unambiguous and they were by far the best fighters.

When the four giants barged down the door, birds (mostly Pidove) gusted away in unison, the larger ones using stronger physical techniques like wing attack or Fly. The ground of the Pokemon Center was disrupted Durant burrowing under the ground, and Golurk standing in front of the door, waiting to punch back, while Patrat, Purrloin, and Blitzle groups swarmed the giant pokemon with annoyance techniques. Durant dug under the Excadrill, earthquakes and Woobat Sonicbooms shattered windows and equipment. A semi-organized battle turned into a chaotic mess, the floor of the pokemon center was stained with blood: at least the winners who survived would not have to be healed! After a half hour's fighting, it became apparent that they were fighting on behalf of Paul and his injured Braviary, and a bruised Conkeldurr launched a Stone Edge its way.

Paul's Braviary, with its last breath, dove into the Conkeldurr with a Brave Bird and became the first martyr of the revolution. The shocked police recalled their pokemon and retreated: they were going to need a lot of backup, especially considering the fact that their enemies could heal after every fight.

Most of the crowd who had gone home filtered back in upon news of the victory, along with an assortment of people from across Castelia. Many trainers followed, spurred on by a rumor spread by Bug Catcher Joe of a free pokemon center: the rumor soon became reality, for who in the crowd could deny to others what they had fought to win Paul and his murdered, beloved pokemon?

Within hours the People's Center was born, and no sooner was it announced then was it besieged. President Nicholas may have been willing to let rioters kill a doctor, especially if important people like Veteran George were on their side. What he could not do was allow the working class to heal their pokemon – at least, not unless he wanted to face a revolution.

It was this decision which would cost him his head.


	2. Chapter 2

In later years, President Nicholas would be harshly criticized by the exiled bourgeois for laying siege to the People's Pokemon Center. According to them, his delay was what cost him his throne, his head, and any semblance of order in all of Unova. Had he struck immediately, the argument goes, there would never have been a revolution. (In an ironic twist, he would later argue unsuccessfully at his trial that his delay was proof of his own secret revolutionary sympathies, and that he restrained elements in his administration from attacking at once.) Yet there were far more understandable reasons for his reluctance. Although the well-paid officer corps, and their more powerful pokemon, could be counted on, Nicholas did not trust that the rank and file would obey orders for a direct assault. He had sent the strongest members of the police and they had been repelled, and adding to their number would do little good - they were thugs for roughing up labor organizers and petty thieves who seldom had to put themselves or their pokemon in any real danger. As for artillery fire, the Pokemon Center's walls had been reinforced a great deal out of fear of an amphibious attack during the war: Kanto was an enemy in that conflict, the Center was near the harbor, and Blastoise could fire a lot more than just water. This meant that artillery would only be wasting ammo – had only he thought to guard against internal subversion as well!

Nor would a siege would take very long: the Center contained only modest food stores, and the trainers had not brought nearly enough. President Nicholas was convinced it would fall within a couple days: furthermore, surrender would leave less of a black mark than a massacre. He was more concerned with what the wealthier trainers in the area would do with the city's sole Pokemon Center walled off, so he ordered that Mistralton City's center be airlifted to Castelia. Mistralton's trainers didn't live in the capital, and were not known for their power, so Nicholas feared them far less than he did Castelia's aristocracy. Most importantly, it was the only city with enough airships to carry a Pokemon Center on such short notice; few cities in this era even possessed an airport, and Misralton's was by far the largest of them all.

Nicholas did not consult with Emma, the city's free-spirited Gym Leader and a skilled pilot in her own right. That airlift would be the last time any part of Mistralton City was under his control.

Even at his best, Bird Keeper Paul was quite far from being a natural leader. The crowd had formed by accident, and he spurred them more out of desperation than radicalism, hoping that their numbers would allow his Braviary to be healed. And now his Braviary – his starting pokemon, his sole pokemon – was dead.

And yet the people gathered there wanted him to lead a revolution, despite neither being competent enough to be more than a symbol of unity, nor capable of doing much of anything in his grief-stricken state. But if they were going to win, someone had to be in charge.

There were two trainers under him who showed a degree of acumen for leadership and possessed powerful pokemon – and the way Paul saw it, if you couldn't lead strong pokemon, there was no way you could lead people. Veteran George was a figure anyone who followed the news had known of: indeed, his presence there was almost as big a deal in the media (state and underground alike) as the rebellion itself. And it was true that he had organized the defense of the Pokemon Center successfully; his tactical acumen was undeniable. Yet when younger, he had commanded the troops who fired the first shots of the Orre War; some say the skirmish would have ended peacefully had a cooler head been in charge. Furthermore, he was a former general, a high-ranking member of Nicholas' regime until a surprise, sudden dismissal a few years back, and he was widely suspected of being more interested in personal ambition than any cause, even one as nebulous as free healthcare for pokemon.

The alternative was Bug Catcher Joe. A relatively young and unassuming figure, his Durant had fought well during the First Battle of the Center. He had taken it upon himself to spread the offer of free health care for Pokemon across the city, and somehow had organized enough people to get the message out effectively. And yet even in this early period, Paul harbored suspicions: the rumor had spread too fast and they still needed to heal their own wounded; Nurse Joy, the healing machine, and her Audino were spread thin trying to fix up them all. The decision was a righteous one, but it had gone neither through him nor through the people: was this a sign? And unlike George, whose foibles were at least public record, Joe was an unknown, a face in the crowd. Appointing him could be either a great decision or disastrous.

If Paul had any trusted friends or family in the crowd, he would have ceded power to them. But his time in Orre had caused him to drift far away from his friends back in Castelia. He had never married, and his parents had passed away a few years ago of old age. So he would make them share power, and hope they kept each other in check.

"Veteran George, keep this center safe. Bug Catcher Joe, you handle the other stuff. I'm going to sleep." It wasn't quite appointing them ministers of Defense and the Interior of the Revolutionary Government, but it amounted to the same thing: the arrangement would hold for some time.

And with that, Paul closed his eyes. Theoretically, a trio consisting of one Vullaby, a Houndour from overseas, and a Liepard would keep watch through the night. In reality, Paul was the only one who could sleep, and only because he had just flown across the continent, stormed a Pokemon Center, and watched his Braviary die.

The center bustled all night with voiced hopes and fears and preparations.

Although both part of Unova, Mistralton City and Castelia could hardly be more different. While Castelia's countless streets made it easy to get lost, Mistralton was simply too small for anyone to do so. It had only become a city a few years ago, and its gym (which, with few exceptions, signified city status in this era) had been granted more as a reward for its valuable role during the war than for its population.

Perhaps more importantly, it had no industry, and far less crushing poverty. Its people were not rich - the swampland made for poor agriculture, for one – but most farmers were freeholders, and so could blame no one but themselves and the weather for poor harvests. Factories were absent, and the population so sparse that there were farmers within the city limits. It was the birthplace of aviation in Unova and had the first and largest airport in the country, which had grown massively in recent years to serve the needs of resupply during the Orre War. But its pilots had since fallen on harder times; this was before the era of jets, but airships and biplanes were still expensive to maintain, and peace meant the loss of their best customer. Pokemon training professionally was not an easy task in this era, as it is today. Although the Center was much cheaper than in Castelia, it still put a major hole in anyone's pocket. A few people worked in shops, a few more were innkeepers serving trainers who came to challenge the gym, but most people worked either as pilots or pokemon trainers.

Gym Leader Emma was both of these things. The daughter of farmers, she had been involved in aviation from its infancy, for she had always envied how freely her Unfezant and Sigilyph soared through the air. She used her planes to train her pokemon, and her fame brought her customers when others lacked them, so she rarely lacked for healing items. In time, she became one of the strongest trainers in the city, and had won the tournament to select its gym leader.

She had also just seen her city's pokemon center – the pride of her hometown and a necessary lure for her challengers - lifted out by the Air Force without an explanation. The reasoning was obvious: Mistralton was being demoted.

When she walked to the airport to get her plane and take it back, she was surprised to hear that this was not in fact the reason; there was a rebellion in Castelia, and Mistralton's pokemon center was being pressed into emergency use. She was even more surprised to see the rest of the pilots in Mistralton waiting for her, asking what they should do.

Gym Leader Emma was naturally sympathetic to rebellions – she detested taking orders from anyone, and what was law but another order? Worse, she had seen no signs that another center would be constructed if the old one was damaged in battle or the rebellion lasted a while.

"I'm going to supply the rebels; if there's a civil war going on, I'm with the ones who didn't steal our pokemon center! Anyone who wants to help out, follow me!"

The official story, as reported in the state-run media, was that a large criminal gang had stormed the Castelia Pokemon Center, killed the presiding doctor, and were holding the pokemon there hostage. The story about free treatment was a ruse to gain more hostages. No one believed the official story, even the parts which were true.

Reports had also gone out of a Durant breaking into the state newspaper's offices and escaping with a backup printing press, which is the best explanation of how the other story – a slightly embellished and propagandized version of the events described in chapter one of this narrative – got out to the public. That President Nicholas ruled on behalf of an industrialist elite had long been known by many, but he always made a show of trying to alleviate the conditions of the poor – never more than a show, but it was a good enough show to fool a great many people. That the takeover had been illegal concerned virtually no one; they all dreamed of a world of pokemon trainers.

In the future, many would claim skepticism about the revolution and state that President Nicholas was the lesser of many evils. At the time, however, no one thought such a thing: there were only the elites who supported him, and the masses who opposed him.

The new Pokemon Center was dropped on the other edge of Castelia City, in what had been a wide plaza; some found it an annoyance, but there was nowhere else to put it. This center had security guards inspecting entrants and an infantry platoon stationed outside; it would not fall so easily. The only problems were that it was impossible to run a Pokemon Center without allowing in the pokemon, and that strong pokemon are the most powerful weapons known to man.

There was nothing suspicious about the last group of trainers who had entered: if their pokemon were strong, so were many pokemon of the wealthy, on whose behalf the center had been set up. And they had the money to pay for it; how were the guards to know it was their life savings? Many of the pokemon there were foreign, to be sure, but this was far from a red flag; why would someone with a Snorlax care about domestic politics? And although the Electrode was suspicious, they had no idea that the other nine pokemon they had brought in also could learn Selfdestruct or Explosion.

The Pokemon Center, every trainer and pokemon inside, and all of the guards were killed within seconds of the enormous blast.

At the time, this was seen as a spontaneous act of desperation, or of heroism, or of savage murder. Yet later historians have not considered this to be a very plausible explanation: the number and exotic status of the pokemon involved meant that someone had to have organized this attack. Who it was, and whether they were among the bombers, has made excellent fodder for speculation and conspiracy theories, but the real answer has been lost to history.

As the hot summer night turned to a bewilderingly cold day, the morale and energy of the People's Center had deteriorated due to a lack of food. Although a hungry few argued for a continued defensive strategy, hoping that the people would rise up and encircle the besieging army, Veteran George did not believe the Center could wait that long; hunger sapped morale quite easily. At the very least, their territory had to be expanded beyond the Center's walls to include at least one supermarket, to buy them time for the rebellion to grow.

No one in the Center realized how quickly it had already spread: a Mienshao and a Throh had already hurled two particularly repressive factory managers out of the top floor of their factories, and the CEOs only survived because they and their pokemon had joined with the besieging army; it was the closest thing to a safe place in this chaos. The medics had done a decent job, but the other force had no pokemon center.

As the armies faced one another, the revolutionaries recognized two major differences between the Unova Royal Army and his ragtag force: the large, white bands worn by the regime's troops, and the fact that the regime's armies were composed of bigger pokemon, but not nearly as many of them. Veteran George had initially suspected a feint, until he recognized the presence of President Nicholas, and the pokemon he was riding as a Kyurem. (In reality, the rest of the army was busy trying to crush disturbances around the rest of the city.)

This was far from a favorable type match-up, but he'd do what he could. "Golurk, Hammer Arm!" The ghost mech revved its mysterious engine and rushed towards the dragon, its hand turning solid as it struck.

But Nicholas had not become dictator by being a weak pokemon trainer. "Kyurem, Ice Beam." In a laser-like blast of ice, his Golurk was frozen instantly, then recalled to its pokeball before a volley of water attacks from the Royal Samurott Corps (who were only five in number) could wash it to the afterlife.

Kyurem launched a fast-moving glacier towards the rebels and the trainers and pokemon mostly scattered away in chaos, while a brave few Tepig walked backwards and tried to melt it with their attacks. Before they had time to lose hope, an entire air force appeared above the scene of their battle, sent out an enormous flock of nearly every flying pokemon native to Unova from Pidove to Mandibuzz, and fired a volley of gunfire towards the president and his Kyurem. At the same time, Bug Catcher Joe ordered his Durant to use Guillotine, and a second army (well, more of an angry mob, but so was the first army) appeared on the horizon, cutting off President Nicholas' retreat.

It remains unclear what knocked out the Kyurem. Bug Catcher Joe would claim that his Durant's attack hit, while other witnesses credited Gym Leader Emma's Sigilyph, and the issue became politicized. In reality, this was a symbol of how each faction sought to elevate their own leader's importance during the revolution, and the attack was probably the result of a stray critical from a grunt whose name has been lost to history.

After he recalled his fainted pokemon, President Nicholas surrendered his army to the rebels. He was taken away in chains, as were his high-ranking loyalists, the former gym leader (who had widely been believed to have won his position through bribes; his weakness was a city-wide embarassment) and a few notoriously villainous businessmen. All of them were thrown into a Castelia's highest-security prison, a dungeon once reserved for union organizers and leftist political prisoners. An interim government was agreed to in principle under the leadership of Bird Keeper Paul, with important positions for Veteran George, Bug Catcher Joe, and Gym Leader Emma: elections were to be held in a month.

Before the crowd went home, the revolutionaries put on a great, city-wide celebration, complete with fireworks and an open-air Pokemon Musical, culminating an enormous tournament with free healing and free entry to determine the new gym leader: only the first round finished before they went home. A mood of optimism and victory now filled the air, where before there was only despair. As far as the people knew, the revolution was over, the heroes had won, and a better tomorrow was just over the horizon.

In reality, the revolution was only beginning.


	3. Chapter 3

It is easy to think of dictatorship as like a human, or like most pokemon: when you cut off the head, the body dies. In reality, it is a Dodrio, just like a democracy: a series of constantly competing heads trying to rein each other in, forced to cooperate for the sake of mutual survival. And of course, some have likened the revolutionary government to a Hydreigon, and others have done likewise with the old order – a series of brainless heads destroying everything in its path.

One head – the capital – had fallen. Perhaps another had in Mistralton – the air force was important, the city undergoing its own revolution - but if this is the case Unova's old regime had eight heads, more than any known Pokemon. But furious as the people around Unova were, hope alone was not enough for them to lose their chains.

A few relatively unimportant cabinet ministers, the local Gym Leader, and most of the army's officer corps had gathered in Nacrene City in a meeting to determine the new government. Although President Nicholas had been a civilian, and gained power initially through an election before dissolving the legislature and ruling as a dictator the last few decades, his government had become more and more reliant on the military in recent years. The secret police had acquitted themselves poorly in Castelia, and most importantly, the commander of the army, General Alexander, had long sought power for himself. His opportunity had come.

(As for Nicholas, even if the revolutionaries didn't kill him, they would use him as a hostage. And he was more than happy to let them shoot the hostage.)

The meeting was a foregone conclusion. No one spoke against him, out of fear – fear of arrest by the man of the hour, or worse, fear that the revolution would win if they did not stand united. Thus did Gentleman Alexander become President Alexander, defender of the old order and leader of one side of a civil war.

Perhaps I have used the wrong metaphor, for many say a dictatorship is more like a Reuniclus, prone to breaking apart into small pieces whenever the leader died. For all those united by terror into striving to crush the revolution, there would always be others who only saw opportunity. To them, this was a chance to carve out their own fiefdoms and maintain it long enough that they would survive as independent when the civil war ended, or even to supplant the interim leader and revolutionaries alike and seize absolute power for themselves.

In this war, the first to take that role would be the commander of the army of Orre, who sought to use the very resentment of the people he had conquered to build the foundation of his own independent kingdom – and if he could grab a bit of Unova as well, all the better. His name was Miror A, his favorite pokemon was Shiftry, and hours after the fall of Castelia and the declaration of the interim government, he declared Orre's independence and neutrality from Unova's internal struggle.

It has been common as far back as the revolution's darker days to see Bird Keeper Paul as a hero, a symbol of the revolution before it turned into an orgy of violence and terror of which only Giratina could be proud. And it is true that many people still look up to him even today. Sadly, this heroism is more legend than fact. Like Bug Catcher Joe, his primary motivation was revenge; the only difference between the two was that his lust for revenge could be far more easily satisfied. Yet he would still use his power to have it satisfied, and there is no one else who bears more blame for the farce that was Unova's revolutionary tribunal.

The fact that Ex-President Nicholas had committed severe crimes against democracy and humanity was never in doubt. However, his conviction on such matters was complicated by two major factors: the first was that, rather than fight to defend the regime, his police had realized quickly how much was lost and spent the day burning evidence. The second was that, although extrajudicial killing was common, the actual laws of Unova did not actually allow for capital punishment; the security forces murdered many a rebellious pokemon trainer in the middle of the night, but they did not and could not execute them under the auspices of the law. (Not that the law meant much in his administration.)

And then Nicholas – Nicholas the fallen, Nicholas the damned – made a statement which stunned the crowd with its very audacity. "You have proven nothing. I plead not guilty, for as far as the evidence shows, I have committed no crimes. Indeed, had it not been for me, it would have been even worse; my advisors were out for blood and I showed you lenience." That he had rigged election after election, killed rebel after rebel, and ordered the murder and torture of thousands was known to all in the crowd, but there was nothing in the court record to prove it.

Veteran George murmured aloud that they might have to find him innocent, if things kept going the way there were.

Bird Keeper Paul was not so convinced. "What crime did my Braviary commit?"

"I'm sorry for your loss." President Nicholas answered – clearly, he had read up on the incident in his short days of confinement. "I told the police force to subdue you if possible without violence, but you guys resisted, and pokemon die in wars. It was not an execution, and if it was, I was not the one responsible."

Paul shook his head. "By the time we got to the Pokemon Center, Braviary was already dead. Braviary and countless other pokemon who committed no crimes save for being born to poor trainers – to say nothing of the trainers themselves, who often get sick and die the same way. Even you can not deny that you presided over a system where poor people were expendable, to be worked half to death and thrown away to starve – and where most people, no matter how hard they worked, were poor." He paused for a moment, tears welling up as he related his own story.

"Staying in Orre meant losing my home and dying in the desert heat, but going home meant exhausting my Braviary to the point where it'd need healing I couldn't afford, because I didn't get paid enough to get by. No one did – not there, and not here either; the only people making money are the ones doing the paying. I would never have been in Orre to begin with if there were jobs in Unova which paid me enough to support myself and my pokemon."

"This is what your Unova was. You ran it. If you didn't order every striker blacklisted and every opposition politician shot, you sure as hell didn't stop it. This was your system. And you will die for it, like you killed so many others."

The crowd cheered. The Durant moved closer, placing the dictator's head in his cold, steel pincers. Some say the verdict was pronounced at that moment, and his next statement was made by a severed head: others say it was a closing remark before his execution. All agree on what he said: "But will you create anything better?"

Paul scoffed at the notion, answering a man who all agree had already been decapitated. "Maybe I won't, but the people will."

Soon after, the pokemon-less Bird Keeper announced his resignation as leader of the revolutionary government and retired from public life. It was thought at the time that he did so because he was badly shaken by Nicholas' words, but according to his memoirs, it was because he had won his revenge, and revenge was the only thing that he still cared about with his Braviary gone. Whether he was telling the truth, to the public or to himself, can of course never be known for sure.

The moment the dictator lost his head, a pokeball began to shake in a jail cell, then opened. The seal which binds pokemon to their pokeballs is dependent on the survival of its trainer; they will not stay captive forever, waiting for a corpse to let them out. Ordinarily, this simply allows them to be captured by the families of the dead, or resume new lives in the wild, but for legendary pokemon this can be a very dangerous thing.

And of course, Kyurem was a legendary pokemon.

The prison itself could not contain it – no prison could. Escapees were thankfully not an issue; there would be no more trials, just a bunch of ministers accused of various crimes, foremost among them corruption, killed in a tragic accident by an escaped Kyurem. Some would say they were killed in the chaos by a revolutionary government eager to avoid another embarrassment of a trial, one more interested in wiping out enemies than in protecting the people, but the ice marks on their bodies speak to the contrary.

In reality, the revolutionary government failed to protect the people, but it was not from lack of effort. The air force of Mistralton, save for a couple representatives, had returned home to take part in their own city's revolution – even Gym Leader Emma was absent. As for Bug Catcher Joe's Durant, Kyurem was not one to forget a threat; it would need a good, long rest in the pokemon center after being stepped on like a... much smaller bug.

It was a scene which to this day inspires many of Unova's famous monster movies, and has made Castelia known far and wide in popular culture as a place destroyed by legendary pokemon on a weekly basis. Skyscrapers were demolished – most of them empty, their workers watching the trial, to be sure, but there were many casualties all the same, as much from debris as from those few still trapped inside. The revolutionary army was crushed and broken; had the enemy known to seize the opportunity, it would have ended right then and there. Thankfully for the revolutionaries (and their sympathizers to this day) the intelligence minister, a Psychic by the name of Thomas, had fanned out with his Sigilyph, Musharna, and Elgyem across the city, keeping close tabs on suspected counter-revolutionaries and using hypnosis when necessary. Many would fall asleep that day; few would ever wake up, but most importantly, none would inform the enemy.

About an hour into its rampage, Kyurem suddenly stopped and flew home. The rest of them were spared – no thanks to the revolution.

While Castelia slew a tyrant and spied on perceived traitors, only to find they could not defend against the tyrant's own pokemon, a dramatically different alternative to their revolution was presenting itself in Mistralton. The breach with Castelia was not open yet, but it did not need to be to serve as an inspiration.

The strangest thing about it at this point was how much of it happened by chance. An ideology would develop out of it later, to be sure, but at this point it was simply the fact that the city's police officers had fled and no one else, least of all the laid-back gym leader, had volunteered to take their place.

And yet there was no more violence than before, not even an upswing in vandalism; there was simply not enough hate in the whole city for it to create a crime wave. What did happen was something entirely different. Artisans, shop clerks, and tenant farmers quit en masse, then came back demanding only that they be treated as equals; their prior bosses had no choice but to accept. There were no burglaries, but squatting increased dramatically; anyone who had more land than they could farm lost it if the land was any good. The economy had changed dramatically overnight; with no one willing to enforce inequality, they could not help but be equal – yet it was a tenuous equality, dependent on human decency. What crimes did occur went unsolved, but it was treated not as a terror, but as a sad fact of life.

And then the pokeballs stopped working. The reasons for this have often been disputed, but the traditional explanation remains that it was because the people (save for a select few) lacked the heart to be any creature's master. And yet, while a few fled into the wild, most pokemon stayed around – as pets and as friends, and even some as battling companions.

On the same day Kyurem devastated Castelia, the people who were once called the pokemon trainers of Mistralton City gathered outside what was once the gym. Now, their pokemon were "pokemon partners", their title disposed of, their description ambiguous. They were the teammates of their pokemon, who continued to battle for fun, and to take their commands as advice. They loved what had become of their city, and they swore to protect it from any who sought to destroy it.

Many would criticize them in later years – they were naive, they were ideologues, the human goodness and sense of community their system required didn't scale to areas larger than Mistralton, or it was never that great to begin with. They didn't agree, or simply didn't care. They would make their own force to protect their paradise. Not an army with regiments and ranks and commanders, but a team, all its members equal.

And they would call it Team Plasma.


End file.
